Smith & Purcella Switch Ends to Win Priefert #14 WSTR Finale XIII

Former PRCA World Champion and
14-time NFR qualifier Steve Purcella, Hereford, Texas, spent most of his rodeo
career turning steers while Arizona’s Chad Smith considers himself a heeler
first, but the cowboys switched ends to win $178,000 in the Priefert #14 World
Series of Team Roping Finale.

"Chad did a good job of
sticking it on the horns and making it easy for me," Purcella said.
"I told him down the arena that I've been on both ends of it. There's a
lot more to heading. I don't care what everybody says. The heeler gets all the
glory but the header is the one that makes it all happen, I promise. I've been
there and done it. It's a team event, not keep away."

Smith and Purcella came from ninth
call to finish first roping four head in 30.11 seconds. When the announcer boomed,
“That puts you first in the average,” they never imagined it would hold.

"Troy (Shelley) had us stand
there in the back," Purcella explained. "I told him, 'We aren't going
to be here but only for a minute. I was really thinking we had a chance to win
fourth, maybe fifth, when we roped. It just was just our
day I guess."

"I wasn't really trying to
watch," Smith said. "I was just trying to soak it all it. Teams kept
going out and Steve had more of a serious look on his face, which is hard to
imagine. I didn't think it would ever happen in a #14 roping."

Smith was on a 17-year-old gelding,
Rambler, that has only had about 400 steers roped on him in an arena despite
the many he’s roped out in the pasture.

"That horse is pretty special
to me," Smith said with excitement. "He's just a cowboy horse. He's
never been off of the ranch. I started roping on him and hauled him to his
first World Series within one month of roping on him. A good buddy of mine that
helps us out a little bit took him and has actually been rodeoing on him a
little bit. Brock Hanson rode him for a little while, too. Then when Steve and
I got hooked up I called and said I need to steal my head horse back because I
need all the help I can get. To come here and be able to do that on that horse
in such a short amount of time is pretty amazing."

Smith runs a ranch in northern
Arizona where they have raised horses for as long as he can remember—recalling
that about 40 of the first AQHA horses ever registered came from that ranch.

Purcella was on a bay gelding he
calls Cadillac.

"He came off of the Harrison
ranch down there by Houston (Texas)," Purcella said. "I bought him
initially to head on then I got to thinking that he really wasn't big enough,
so I ended up selling him to my friend Mark Adams a few years ago. Mark turned
steers on him and rode him for a year or two and wasn't really getting along
with him so he traded with Johnny Trotter who also had a horse that he didn't
really get along with. I guess he's really not mine. He belongs to Johnny now but
he's never been on him.”

For Purcella, the win is a bigger
payday than he ever saw in ProRodeo.

"It was around '96, I'm not
sure we won $100,000 the entire year," Purcella said. “Now we win $89,000
in one day—that's pretty coo. They've done a great job over here for our
sport.”

“It’s amazing, we’ve never entered
a roping we didn’t win,” laughed Smith, adding, “this is actually the first
time we’ve ever roped together.”